


Half Light

by tinymarvels (Captain_of_the_sass)



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Healing, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Multi, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, it is very sad beware, kinda slowburn, protective hermann
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 11:55:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19991776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_of_the_sass/pseuds/tinymarvels
Summary: The negative feelings start to build. It happens slowly, like boiling a frog. Newt doesn’t truly understand what’s happening until it’s too late. He thinks it’s depression. He thinks it’s anxiety. He thinks it’s nothing until the first time he hears that voice in his head.The road to hell and back is long and full of bumps and bruises.





	Half Light

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from the song "Half Light" by Banners
> 
> Please heed the tags! Warning for self-harm and suicidal thoughts.
> 
> I plan on doing a collection of Pacific Rim fics as part of an Anthology. This particular one will be two chapters- It follows Newt's spiral into darkness from after PR1 through Uprising and beyond. Chapter 2 will be Newt healing slowly and often painfully with Hermann at his side every step of the way.
> 
> Chapter 2 will have much more Hermann!

There’s nothing at first. A nightmare here and there, a shadow of a memory tinged in blue. But for the most part? Nothing. Newt is still Newt, the way he’s always been. He wears his skinny ties and big black boots, and laughs with all the joy of a man who’s just helped save the world. His favorite thing about this new post-war world is the way Hermann actually laughs _with_ him, a sound he’d rarely if ever heard before. Hermann smiles so open and beautiful that Newt is left with a warm flutter in his chest. The dome is abuzz with clean-up and repairs, the seas still monitored 24/7 just in case. Newt and Hermann spend most of their time together in the lab, compiling their last pieces of data. They seem to gravitate toward each other, falling into orbit as if linked by an invisible force. Sometimes Newt will catch himself losing focus on his recordings, instead daydreaming about experiments he would happily waste days obsessing over. Without looking up from his numbers Hermann would say, aloud, “That’s a ridiculous idea, Newton.” Causing them both to freeze, their eyes meeting. Newt thinks it’s a residual effect of their drift, a link formed by interacting with a hive mind that will fade with time. What Newt doesn’t tell Hermann, what he buries so deep Hermann can never see it, is that Newt doesn’t want this connection to go away. He likes sensing the flutter of Hermann’s amusement, he likes understanding each other without words, and he likes knowing he’s not alone. Hermann and Newt are happy and the world is bright and new.

Of course, the work doesn’t last forever. They stay busy for about a month, but when everything is said and done there’s no reason to keep the dome running any longer. Hermann, unlike Newt, has people waiting for him. Newt wants to be jealous- feels like he should be jealous- but he can’t. He’s been in Hermann’s head, has seen and felt everything that Hermann has, and he loves that tiny family Hermann is building just as much. Newt’s not upset that Hermann’s leaving- he’s upset that Hermann’s leaving and not taking Newt with him. That he’s not going home to meet Vanessa (she doesn’t know him, Newt has to remind himself. Not that way he knows her) or see the face of a tiny baby Gottlieb, and he’s going to miss so many more of Hermann’s precious smiles. His best friend, his other half, lets Newt steal one last hug before he boards the copter. Newt blinks furiously against the wind and keeps waving goodbye long after Hermann disappears against the skyline. And that’s it. Newt’s left with nothing.

He doesn’t want to go back to his old job at MIT. He has job offers up to his eyeballs but none of them appeal to him. Newt thinks about getting into art or trying his hand at music like he’s always wanted. In the end Newt does nothing. He moves into a shitty apartment with the few belongings he has left. When he needs money he visits various universities, talks for a few hours, gets paid, and goes back to an empty home. He takes pills for his gradually worsening headaches and makes himself be happy.

Sometimes when he dreams, he dreams of Hermann. There are numbers and DNA sequences flitting in his peripheral vision but all Newt cares about is the easy back in forth, the spark of fondness in Hermann’s eyes as he and Newt argue back and forth about something stupid. In the waking world they correspond with letters just like the old days.

The headaches get worse. It’s a pressure pressing against his eyes from the inside. Newt goes from sleeping nearly all the time to struggling to for even an hour-long nap. When he does sleep he wakes up screaming.

It starts like any other dream; Hermann is waiting, leaning on his cane with a smile on his face. There’s a baby there, not quite present but more of an impression. It’s as if Hermann has carried a memory into the dream, a photograph of sorts that he shows Newt with pride and delight. Newt can’t tell if this is real, can’t tell if he’s actually ghost-drifting with Hermann or not but he doesn’t care. He needs this to be real, so he lets himself believe it is. He soaks in as many details about little baby girl Gottlieb as he can. Most babies just kinda look like potatoes with legs, but with Hermann’s…Newt can see so many familiar features it steals his breath away; Hermann’s nose, the perfect arch of his eyebrows, and his delicate lashes. He can see Vanessa’s eyes, curly black hair, and heart-shaped face. The picture it paints is so beautiful Newt wants to stare at her forever. He’s so lost in it that he doesn’t notice the change in atmosphere at first; the way it gets colder and colder until Hermann tucks the image of his daughter away to protect it from whatever’s in the air. Black water begins to bubble at their feet, boiling and hot in a sharp contrast the air around them. Newt tries to stumble closer to Hermann but his steps are weighted down. When he tugs his leg harder a hand breaks the surface of the water and latches onto him, claws digging into his skin. The more he fights the more the hands take hold, dozens of them dragging him away, dragging him down. He screams for Hermann right up until the water closes over his head and the last thing he sees is Hermann reaching for him, face overcome by desperation and shock.

Newt knows where he is right away. The kaiju homeworld is just as he remembers, every available surface seeming to pulse with organic matter. The air is so hot and dry that it burns going down his throat, stings like swallowing shards of glass. Hermann’s not here, Newt can’t sense him at all for the first time in nearly a year. He feels naked with it, off balance and vulnerable. When the first Precurser steps from the shadows he jerks back so violently he trips over his own feet and slams his tailbone against the ground. There’s a voice repeating NoNoNoNoNo over and over and it takes Newt a moment to realize it’s his own. He’s screaming it, scrambling to get away but there’s nowhere to go; Newt’s surrounded by alien faces. One of them comes forward, close enough that Newt can see the moisture on its skin. Once upon a time he would have jumped at this chance, armed with a thousand questions to ask. But as he stares into those glassy black eyes and sees nothing but his own reflection staring back Newt can’t help but feel like this is the start of something awful. 

Hermann calls to video chat with him the next day. Newt smiles, but it doesn’t quite sit right on his face.

The negative feelings start to build. It happens slowly, like boiling a frog. Newt doesn’t truly understand what’s happening until it’s too late. He thinks it’s depression. He thinks it’s anxiety. He thinks it’s nothing until the first time he hears that voice in his head. With a jolt of panic he pushes it as far away as he can. The more it fights the more the pain and pressure in his head increases.

Newt needs a distraction. He finds his way back to MIT, spends nearly all his time on campus, even during his breaks and days off. He still likes teaching; he wishes that was the reason he decided to go back to it. In truth Newt’s afraid to stay in his apartment by himself, afraid of being alone with his own mind.

It's three years since they last saw each other when Newt and Hermann meet again. Newt is sent as a representative of his field to a scientific convention in London. It’s not as awe-inspiring and exciting as he remembers, but then he sees Hermann. It feels like an empty place inside himself has been filled by Hermann’s terrible math jokes and delighted rambling. He tells Newt all about his work, his wife, and his daughter. When Hermann manages to get his family on a video call Newt is absolutely captivated. He’s seeing something precious, something beautiful. Hermann’s child is named Clarice, and Newt wastes no time in nicknaming her “Lissie” which drives Hermann mad (“Her name is Clarice, Newton, for God’s sake.”) He introduces himself as Uncle Newt and commits as much of this moment to memory as he can. She’s grown since he saw her in his dream; he can see the shape of Hermann’s lips now and indents of Vanessa’s dimples when she giggles. Vanessa herself is smiling over Lissie’s shoulder, and Newt feels a swoop of affection in his belly. It’s a shadow of the love Hermann feels for her. It’s a flutter of the love Newt himself feels for all three of them. When it’s Newt’s turn to contribute to the conversation he talks up his teaching position, tries to make it seem like his existence still has some purpose. He wants to stay here all night, in this shitty hotel lobby, talking to the only three people in the world he feels any connection too. But eventually Lissie starts to yawn and Hermann has a presentation to finish preparing for, and Newt is left in his hotel room feeling bereft. As he falls asleep the voice tells him that this isn’t going to last; that he and Hermann will part ways again soon enough and then Newt will be forgotten once more.

Back in the states again Newt can’t seem to focus on his classes. Students he used to love start to grate on his nerves and he’s constantly jittery all over. It reminds him of when he was younger, when his ADHD was at its peak and all his thoughts were grains of sand slipping through his fingers. The voice in his head is louder, stones in a blender screaming and blocking out everything else.

He dreams that Hermann is walking next to him in an art museum.

He dreams that he’s in the kitchen with Lissie and Vanessa helping them make breakfast.

He dreams that Hermann holds his hand while Newt hums _Bohemian Rhapsody_.

…He dreams that the voice in his head is trying to spread between them.

He can’t let that happen, can’t drag Hermann down into the dark with him no matter how much he doesn’t want to be alone.

Newt shuts the door, builds a wall. A fortress. Iron and blood and chains that trap the bad things in so that Hermann will never have to touch them.

Hermann stops showing up in his dreams.

Now all he sees is the end of the world.

Newt tries to tell someone a million times. He picks up the phone to get in touch with the PPDC but can never make his fingers dial the numbers. He writes a hundred letters to tell Hermann that something’s wrong and his own hands move against his will to shred the letters into microscopic pieces. The only words he can get to anyone are bits of meaningless small talk that only make him more desperate. The voice gets louder, and instead of being in his head it’s coming out of his own mouth.

No one else is going to help him, so at the end of the semester Newt leaves his teaching position and takes things into his own hands. He finds everything he can about residual drift affects, neural bridges, and gets to work. Nothing is concrete- he and Hermann were the first and only people to ever drift with a kaiju after all- but the wealth of information still helps a theory take shape. Ghost-drifts tend to fade away with time, distance, and lack of exposure to further neural bridging. If Newt’s been ghost-drifting with the Precursers then it should go away on its own. He’s not drifting anymore, he’s about as far from them as he can be, and time will only continue to pass. He’s on the track toward freedom. The voices in Newt’s head don’t like that at all.

And it’s definitely more than one voice now. So many of them in his head pushing him to the back, fighting for the controls. They want him to drift. They want to tighten their hold on him. They tell him _YouNeedItYouNeedItYouNeedItYouNeedIt_ , make him desperate for it. Newt watches from the backseat of his own mind while they make a request for the original kaiju brain specimen to be delivered to him under the guise of research. He’s not entirely sure what they say but it must be convincing, because he finds himself in possession of a fucking kaiju brain again.

Newt wants to call Hermann. He wants to hear from Hermann. He wants to write Hermann. He wants to- No. He doesn’t need Hermann. He needs to drift. He wants to drift.

He drifts.

_There is fire and death and Hell on Earth and it is all because of him; he is the monster ripping through the city, he is their creator, he is emerging from the breach, he is a master leading them to the promise of a new world. The humans squirm and fight while their world is being crushed and so they will crush them, too. If one plan doesn't work then they will simply have to try another again and again until they are all that remains._

The exchange of letters back and forth with Hermann gradually slows.

Shao Industries approaches him with a job offer. They've heard about his work with the breach and his recent research into the drift. Newt would be lying if he said he wasn't interested, but he's not in any kind of shape to be working in an environment that stressful. And when they describe their project to him Newt definitely knows he can't take it. The voices- the Prescursers- Newt doesn't want them getting any more information than they already have from him. He fights them for four days; no food, no sleep, just the _drip drip drip_ of blood from his nose and his own body working against him. In the end...it's not his choice. It happens in flashes, like strobe lighting in a horror movie blinking, the terror coming eerily closer with every flash of brightness. Blink. He’s accepted the job offer. Blink. His bags are packed. Blink. He’s standing in a massive apartment halfway around the world with a kaiju brain in his bedroom. He’s losing time, losing himself, losing it all and he’s _fallingfallingfallingfa_ \- This time when he drifts Newt can no longer feel the wet chill of tears on his own face.

Time marches onward. All around him things continue to change and people keep moving forward but Newt is a tape set on rewind. He's moving backward and life is a highlight reel of his worst memories;

receiving detention for clicking his pen over and over because _he can't stop moving can't concentrate wants to vibrate right out of his skin_

flying high on adrenaline standing in front of a pub full of people ready to play and sing and become a rockstar, _but he is booed offstage he is a joke he is nothing like the heroes he dreamed of_

listening to recordings of his mother online and she has the voice of an angel and though he's never loved opera music he loves her songs almost as much as he would've loved actually hearing her voice in person telling him she loved him and missed him and oh _how he wished she had even thought twice about the baby she left without looking back_

wandering the streets of San Francisco smelling fried food and watching cars speed by he is searching for something he can never quite seem to find and _someone is screaming someone is running and he is smashing them destroying them ripping this city apart and moving on_ and this is not his memory this is not him but it is him he is them and they are him and they will move on to the next phase they will start again.

Newt gets a new letter in the mail. It's been redirected a ridiculous number of times to make it to his new address but other than a few bumps ‘n bruises it survived remarkably well. The words are written in wobbly crayon, and on the bottom there’s a clumsy drawing of what might be a family (they kind of look like a bunch of olives with toothpicks stuck in them). But...upon closer inspection, Newt recognizes the shapes; there's Hermann with his cane, Vanessa and her curls, tiny Clarice Gottlieb, and Newt. He's right there with them holding hands with Vanessa and Hermann. “To: Uncle Newt. Love: Lissy” is written in rainbow letters at the bottom. It's a low blow. Newt knows Hermann well enough to realize it's not on purpose, but it still feels like a guilt trip. He stopped replying to Hermann’s messages so instead he gets one from Lissie. Newt's first thought is to pin it to the fridge. Instead he tucks it under his pillow like a good luck charm.

Stripes of evening light slice through the windows as the sun sinks behind the city’s skyscrapers. Newt watches the sunset, watches the world turn dark. If he relaxes his eyes the city lights blur until it looks like a black sky filled with stars.

Newt likes the job at Shao Industries, but he doesn't trust it. Or, rather, he doesn’t trust himself with it. He has access to technology and funding he could never even dream of with the PPDC. It means he now has infinite ways to save the world. It also means the Precursers have infinite ways to destroy it. The voices in his head plan to take full advantage of this. They make him design and plot, and dress the part. They want him to look powerful. They want him to look professional. They want him to look like a vessel worthy of Earth’s future masters. When they moved him halfway around the world, they left all the material things he loved behind; individuality is something he will no longer be needing.

He feels the stirrings if something, a kind of warmth that tries to slither through a tiny gap in his defense while he sleeps. Newt shuts it down right away; he knows it must be Hermann feeling so affectionate and hopeful. Newt never feels happiness anymore.

There must be a reason. Some excuse for why is time is so constantly occupied, too much to keep in touch too often.

He calls it- he calls _her_ Alice. Because Alice, Alice, down the rabbit hole. _Down down down_ he goes.

They're in his brain like insects crawling, cockroaches that scatter to the shadows when the light grows too bright. But they are always there, somewhere, and Newt can feel them. They have their hooks dug into his mind and they are pulling apart the pieces of his brain, slipping into the cracks. Rebuilding him as they see fit. When the last of the light inside him is snuffed out they swarm. He feels the buzz inside, under every inch of his skin, and he laughs. Laughs because it doesn't matter anymore. Nothing matters but the thrill and the power and the rush of endorphins every time he gets a taste of the drift. His mind is a swarm, a siege, a rising tide that sweeps him out to sea. He sinks down into it, becomes the monsters he dreamed about as a child.

Something, somewhere…so small and far away, whispers into his ear every time Hermann asks about her, and the Precursers consider introducing Hermann to Alice. _Don’t_.

_Don’t let them touch him._

It’s laughably easy. Slipping into the background undetected, infecting everything Shao has built bit by bit. He has a hand in every drone they build, they've ensured their own destruction by putting their faith in such a weak man. 

Hermann runs to him and They immediately drop Their gaze, for the first time afraid Their control might slip. Or, that this man above all others, would see past the mask They wear as camouflage. Would see on sight that this is not the man he knows. They tighten the noose around Newt’s neck, send him a fresh rush of terrible awful feelings. Anger at the way people underestimate him. Fear at them finding out everything he’s done. Manic delight at what he’s created, what he’s bringing, what he’s achieving.

Being reunited a balancing act, They struggle to go undetected but their patience with Gottlieb is wearing thin. They are ridiculing and dismissive of him, but he is so hopelessly starving for Newt’s affection that he lets it go, keeps trying even with every spurning word and sarcastic chuckle. It’s infuriating. They hope that, if he cannot be corrupted, then he is one of the first to die for their dreams to become real.

He isn’t strong enough can’t fight them and god he tried he did but he is weak, can’t you understand, Hermann? It’s a strobe light moment. Everything is dim, Newt is aware of what They make him say and do but it washes over him like nothing but a gentle wave. Then all at once it all lights back up again and he is thrown back into the real solid visceral world. Blink. He has a hand around Hermann’s throat, and he thinks he might be crying but he doesn’t know, doesn’t- “I’m sorry, Hermann. They’re in my head.”

Then the lights are out and he sinks under once more.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm torn between focusing solely on Newt/Hermann or going for a Newt/Vanessa/Hermann ending
> 
> Check me on twitter as @GenderfluidNewt  
> or my Newt RP account @KaLjuBlue
> 
> Also this had no beta so if you spot a mistake just kindly let me know?


End file.
